give my daughter to thee."

So saying, he stretched out his hands towards his two children,
who were thus united at his death-bed.

But soon Master Zacharius lifted himself up in a paroxysm of
rage. The words of the little old man recurred to his mind.

"I do not wish to die!" he cried; "I cannot die! I, Master
Zacharius, ought not to die! My books--my accounts!--"

With these words he sprang from his bed towards a book in which
the names of his customers and the articles which had been sold
to them were inscribed. He seized it and rapidly turned over its
leaves, and his emaciated finger fixed itself on one of the
pages.

"There!" he cried, "there! this old iron clock, sold to
Pittonaccio! It is the only one that has not been returned to me!
It still exists--it goes--it lives! Ah, I wish for it--I must
find it! I will take such care of it that death will no longer
seek me!"

And he fainted away.

Aubert and Gerande knelt by the old man's bed-side and prayed
together.

CHAPTER V.

THE HOUR OF DEATH.

Several days passed, and Master Zacharius, though almost dead,
rose from his bed and returned to active life under a supernatural
excitement. He lived by pride. But Gerande did not deceive
herself; her father's body and soul were for ever lost.

The old man got together his last remaining resources, without
thought of those who were dependent upon him. He betrayed an
incredible energy, walking, ferreting about, and mumbling
strange, incomprehensible words.

One morning Gerande went down to his shop. Master Zacharius was
not there. She waited for him all day. Master Zacharius did not
return.

Gerande wept bitterly, but her father did not reappear.

Aubert searched everywhere through the town, and soon came to the
sad conviction that the old man had left it.

"Let us find my father!" cried Gerande, when the young apprentice
told her this sad news.

"Where can he be?" Aubert asked himself.

An inspiration suddenly came to his mind. He remembered the last
words which Master Zacharius had spoken. The old man only lived
now in the old iron clock that had not been returned! Master
Zacharius must have gone in search of it.

Aubert spoke of this to Gerande.

"Let us look at my father's book," she replied.

They descended to the shop. The book was open on the bench. All
the watches or clocks made by the old man, and which had been
returned to him because they were out of order, were stricken out